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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoJohn Minchillo | Associated PressBetzaida Jimenez, mother of Sarai Sierra, 33, who was found dead on Saturday in Turkey, pauses before a news conference on Staten Island, N.Y.

By Marc Santora and Christopher MaagThe New York Times • Tuesday February 5, 2013 7:14 AM

The authorities in Turkey have obtained a court order allowing them to take DNA samples from 21
people who have been questioned in the bludgeoning of a New York woman who was found dead in
Istanbul over the weekend, according to Turkish news reports.

The woman, Sarai Sierra, 33, disappeared on Jan. 21, the day she was supposed to fly back to
Newark, N.J. Her body was discovered close to a major roadway, near remnants of the city’s ancient
walls.

Even as the Turkish police continued to question people, including a man who had contact with
her on the day she vanished, the woman’s family, thousands of miles away on Staten Island, N.Y.,
struggled to process the tragedy.

Sierra’s mother, Betzaida Jimenez, said her daughter’s two children — boys ages 9 and 11 — had
not yet been told that their mother was dead.

“Their father is going to talk to them when he comes back, and we’ll all be there to support
him,” she told NBC’s
Today yesterday.

Their father, Steven Sierra, is in Istanbul, where he went to assist in the investigation before
his wife’s body was found. Sierra identified her body in the morgue on Sunday, the police chief in
Istanbul, Huseyin Capkin, said yesterday.

A special unit was set up to investigate Mrs. Sierra’s disappearance. Even before her body was
discovered, dozens of Turkish security officers were combing through hundreds of hours of video to
try to piece together her movements.

An autopsy confirmed that she died from a blow to the head. Investigators have taken DNA samples
from the crime scene, including from under her fingernails, for testing, the state-run Anadolu
Agency reported.

Sierra left for Istanbul on Jan. 7 and chronicled her trip through photos posted on the
Internet. In addition to her travels in Turkey, she made side trips to Amsterdam and Munich.

“I want to thank the Turkish police — how they went beyond the search for my daughter, even
though they didn’t know her,” Jimenez said. “Even though I wanted to see my daughter alive, at
least we have closure, at least they found her.”